


Worn Old Couch

by 3_modes_Ace_Kat



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Multi, slight AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:21:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23958370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3_modes_Ace_Kat/pseuds/3_modes_Ace_Kat
Summary: This is a slight step to the left AU where Jon has a friend who he goes to visit from time to time. Wrote this because at this point in the story, I don’t think Jon gets enough cuddles.
Relationships: OFC/OMC implied
Kudos: 10





	1. Setting the Scene

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve not finished listening and will post a new chapter after every season.

Jon had.. I guess you could say dated a girl in university. They’d met in one of those boring intro courses that everyone had to take and realized they were on a similar study path. She’d introduced herself as “Dasha” and then had asked him to lunch so they could discuss calculus, because she was struggling and he clearly wasn’t. Normally, such an offer would have set his teeth on edge, a clear ploy to try and get in his pants. He’d never gotten that feeling from her. They’d fallen into a solid friendship the way someone faceplants into pavement. She dragged him out to socialize and he was a dose of good sense and logic. 

He’d moved into her small flat to get away from his horrible uni roommate, and because her ex-roommate had abruptly left, leaving everything behind. She asked him on a date five days later. When he stuttered our something vaguely resembling an explanation for why he didn’t date, she laughed so kindly and told him she wanted to date, not to have sex. 

They never did the normal things he always saw other young couples doing. They’d fallen into old married life with the speed most people fell in lust. They Shared hugs, and maybe some kisses, and held hands as they walked through the park, and were someone to lean on when they studied late at night. It was the best arrangement Jon had ever heard of. 

Their favorite thing, as far as Jon was concerned came late at night, when he was fidgeting around the apartment, hands and mind too restless to relax and too frazzled to study. She would sit there, watching him with calm hazel eyes until he’s made his third circuit past her, and then she’d snag him. Just loop an index finger in his pants and reel him and plop him on the couch. Dasha would then do this thing where she’d lean into his side until he went horizontal and then she’d bracket him between the back of the couch and her body. just curling up on their old worn couch, where she press him into the crease of the cushions and the back and cuddle him until his heart stopped resembling a humming bird in his chest. 

When he finally remembered to breathe like a normal human, she’d ask him “up or down?”. Up to cradle his head and let him hide from the world, or down to tuck under his chin. He tended to prefer down, because she would tuck her hand under his shirt, just on his hipbone, a point of burning warmth and grounding. Those times, he slept without fear.


	2. After the Worms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Season 1

Stumbling out of the Magnus Archives, his hand still trying to clench around a tape recorded that is no longer there, Jon knows he needs help. He’s strung out and exhausted but he can’t sleep. Every time he lays down (and he has to lay on his front to avoid aggravating every single worm hole that burns and bleeds and itches every second... no, best not think about that right now), the sound, the feel of worms crawling after him, on him fills his senses. He hasn’t slept. He can’t sleep. He needs.. he need someone to keep watch and let him know that no one, that no Thing is coming for him. 

Elias has kicked him out of the Institute, And Jon doesn’t feel like he knows his colleagues well enough to ask for help with this, despite that last little while. So he falls on old familiar patterns. So he goes. 

He goes to Dasha. She answers the door; same sweet hazel eyes and soft smile. Her smile drops as she takes him in. Jon knows he looks like a mess, he hasn’t been able to shower because the loss of clothes means he has to deal with what he looks like. 

He tries to open his mouth to do something. To explain or request or scream, but nothing comes out. his throat is still ragged from the screaming. Dasha seems to understand regardless, because she snags his hand and leads him into the house. Her kids, hers and Alistair’s are sprawled our in the living room. Blue and green eyes look up and Dasha smiles and says that they’ll be busy and that the kiddos should look after themselves. They nod, far too serious for 10 and 15. The kids know him as “strange old uncle Jon”. He’s kind to them in his own brusque way, and will always answer any scientific questions. 

Alistair, a big barrel chested man with close cropped blond hair and a wry humor to match Jon’s own, is sitting in the kitchen and looks up with a smile and a greeting on his lips. That drops as he takes in the scene they make. Something in his blue eyes makes Jon want to hide, to curl in on himself and not be seen, be witnessed, be known by someone so ... so .. so Whole. 

“Bedroom, I think.” Dasha says brusquely, and Alistair nods. Alistair nods, stands up, and once again Jon can hear the dull click-this of Alistair’s false foot. The sound is shockingly comforting. It reminds Jon that they would never consider him broken past fixing, that they know battle. They’d keep watch if he asked. 

They take him to the guest bedroom. It’s the one with the queen bed in the corner, unlike their master bedroom, where it’s only the headboard against the back wall. 

Alistair settles against the back wall, pulling the old pillow, worn thin and soft with age and looks at Jon quizzically. Sometimes, Jon has days where he can’t stand the touch of another’s skin, so they bracket him with pillows and the soothing murmur of their voices. Jon doesn’t even have the strength, the words to express himself, so he shakes his head and Alistair shrugs. Dasha comes up behind him, making just enough noise not to startle him. 

“Shower, change and get in the bed, Jon. I’ve left the nightlight on in the bathroom” She says, handing him sweatpants a little to big and a shirt that he swims in. The smell of fresh laundry, the same soap she used in university is a comfort. Something about showering frantically in a room lit with glow in the dark stars and a fish nightlight steps around all the potholes that have been carved into his psyche in the last 2 months. The touch of the towel still hurts, and he can feel that he’s opened up a few of the holes. 

Alistair is lounging by the time Jon gets back, too shy still to change in front of him. Jon doesn’t even realize he’s whimpering, a soft sub-vocal sound until Alistair sits up asks “What’s wrong?” Jon won’t, can’t speak of it so he just lifts his shirt and gestures tot he oozing sores. Something in Alistair’s eyes hardens, but he sits up and pulls out a first aid kit. 

“Come here.” The words have the old ring of   
drill sergeant but with out the bite of volume, and his hands are infinitely gentle as they spread analgesic and bandages, hiding the holes from view. 

Dasha is waiting when he turns around, with a cup that she presses into his hand. “Drink” she says, and it’s meal replacement; strawberry flavor. She remembered. It brings a faint smile to his lips, and he chugs it. It’s thick and cloying in his throat and for a moment, he gags, imagining worms crawling down his throat. The moment passes. 

It’s hard to climb into the bed, but the warmth, the sheer body skin warmth radiating from Alistair, and Dasha when she climbs in after is worth everything. Jon settles down, sliding just a little until his head can rest on a built bicep.   
“Up or down?” Dasha asks him softy. They can both tell he’s on the edge of breaking, a single sharp word enough to shatter. 

“Down. Please.” The words still stick in his throat and his voice is raspy. She nods and settles under his chin, one hand snaking under his shirt to settle on his hip, an old familiar comfort. 

“We’ve got you, Jon.” Alistair whispers above his head, and Dasha nods, her hair filled with a new perfume rubbing against his chin.   
It’s a promise of safety. Even if just for a moment. 

“We’ll keep watch” Dasha says, and that’s what he needs. Something to soothe the skin hunger clawing at his skin, and the knowledge that someone will watch over him. It’s not a promise of safety for forever. Just for today, just for right now, just for this moment of comfort and peace.   
Jon sleeps. And he doesn’t dream.


	3. After the Paranoia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Season 2

He shows up at their door like a bedraggled stray cat crying to come in from the rain. Dasha opens it, and she smiles but there’s something sad in her eyes.  
“Jon? Is something wrong?”

“No I…” She glares at him, and he crumples like old tin foil. “Yes. Can I sleep on your couch?”

She gives him a look over. “Alright, come in. We moved it out to the garage, to give the boys their own mancave of sorts. Alistair and the boys are out on a trip. Have you eaten?”

Jon follows in, closing and locking the door behind himself. The lock is sturdy, but Jon knows it won’t keep the world out. Nothing will. The shadows of the setting sun seem deeper than they should be, as he follows her into the kitchen. Even it, bright and cheerful and yellow, seems stained with after images of blood. The chairs, with their little cushions look more like blood splatter than flowers. He turns to look out the window, watching for police sirens.

The clink of a plate being set in front of him pulls him out of a daymare. “Eat.” There’s ham, and lentils, and cauliflower, and what looks like the entirety of the leftovers Dasha had lying around. It’s a strange hodge podge and the first warm filling food he’s had in what feels like weeks.

“What happened?” Her voice is implacable.

“I.. work has been a bit rough.” She smiles at him, all warm understanding, but her eyes are wry, all “no shit Sherlock”, and “You chose this, dumbass”. Jon shovels more food in his mouth to avoid making an idiot of himself.

“I just need a place to stay tonight, and then I’ll move on.” He assures her, and she huffs a laugh at him.

“You got into some trouble, didn’t you.” He can tell it’s not a question. “You’ve got more silver now.” Before he can say more she shakes her head. “One night, I’ll pack you a duffle, and then you’ll run away into the night again. Next time, I’m getting you a bell.”

Jon genuinely expects Dasha to hover, as that is her preferred method of showing she cares, that and feeding someone into a coma. Instead, she leaves him alone to pack the promised duffle. Once she leaves the room, Jon regrets it deeply. With someone there, he could avoid thinking about what happened at the Institute. The .. the Not!Sasha and what she.. they had become after the table was smashed. Jurgen Lietner, and how exactly he had looked with his face caved in by the pipe that he had carried for protection. The insane paranoia he had descended into. It just feels like failure after failure after failure, piled on his shoulders, and he didn’t think he could hold them all. Something ad to give, and Jon, right at this very moment, is very sure it will be him.

Dasha’s return startles him out of the very explicit memory of the way Lietner’s eyes had looked, popped and hollow sockets, blood spilling like a river down his grubby shirt.  
“Come on.” The garage is warm, and smells like teenage deodorant and rebellion. It’s, frankly, shockingly comforting because of how much it reminds him of university, when he thought he knew everything and the world seemed so very manageable. The couch is still worn, and old, and brown, but with new creases and wear points on the arms. There is a blanket covering the body of it, and Dasha gestures him into the crease of the couch.

“This looks like couch burrito levels bad.” She tells him, and Jon can’t help but laugh. It’s cracked and dry and edged with sobbing.  
“And last time wasn’t?”

“No. That was sandwich levels bad. Get in. But don’t tell me anything. This feels like I need to maintain plausible deniability.”

“You. You wouldn’t be wrong.” Jon says, but strips his shoes off and collapses into the warmth. Dasha climbs in after him, and they spend a few minutes navigating limbs, pillows, and the exact tightness of a proper couch burrito. Under the covers, with no light and their soft breathing, Jon can try to forget. Dasha helps, telling him about the boys, about Alistair, about anything and everything that comes to mind. It’s a story in it’s own right, but one vivid with joy and free of pain. Her hands are under his shirt, stroking over his ribs. He tries not to think of the scars she can feel, but she never flinches from them. Her voice is hypnotic, full of highs and lows. Her hands are certain on his flesh, reminding him that he is more than just a brain and eyes and adrenaline. It take an hour or so, but the half mad panic attack that had been dogging his steps for the last month or so, finally loosens it’s hold. She tucks him into her chest, letting him hide from the world. It feels like she’s hiding him from prying eyes.  
It’s that thought, the one deep realization that Elias probably can’t find him here, that finally let’s Jon sleep.


End file.
